Not Applicable.
The present invention relates in general to multimedia entertainment systems, and, more specifically, to a multimedia player having a fast seek function for navigating between track selections contained within a playlist.
With the emergence of techniques such as MP3 for compressing digital audio files, the number of track selections (e.g., songs) stored on a single medium (e.g., a compact disc, a hard disk drive, or a flash memory card) can become very large. For example, a compact disc (CD) with a capacity of 650 megabytes can store more than 10 hours of recorded music in many hundreds of separate MP3-encoded files. The MP3 format is formally called MPEG-1 layer 3, which was adopted by the Moving Picture Experts Group jointly operated by the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the International Electro-Technical Commission (IEC). A digital audio file with this encoding has a file extension of xe2x80x9cmp3xe2x80x9d. Many users are compiling extensive libraries of MP3 material for playing from their computers and from dedicated media players.
Other compression technologies are also known, such as AAC, which allow many individual digital audio tracks to be stored in the same individual unit of media. Furthermore, storage capacity of various media types (such as hard disk drives) are increasing to the point where large numbers of uncompressed files can be stored and simultaneously accessible to a player.
Media players for such digital audio media must provide ways in which the user of the media player can navigate to (i.e., choose) a desired selection for reproduction. In mobile applications, such as a personal handheld unit or an automotive entertainment system, the number of user controls and/or display sizes may be limited. Due to the large number of selections that may be in a particular playlist (i.e., a grouping of audio selections active within a player), the user must be able to rapidly move within the playlist. However, ways have been lacking for fast, simple, and efficient navigation among selections using an uncomplicated interface (e.g., a small number of push buttons and a display having few character spaces).
The present invention has the advantage of providing a fast, simple, and efficient navigation method and apparatus for seeking to a desired selection within a large playlist.
In one aspect of the invention, a method is provided for fast seeking from a current selection to a desired selection within an ordered playlist of selections. Each selection in the ordered playlist has a corresponding selection number between a first selection number and a last selection number. Selection identifying data of the current selection is displayed on a display. A control action is performed indicating either a seek-up or a seek-down command. A control action is performed to establish a fast seek interval. During the fast seek interval, selection identifying data is displayed for interim selections on the display according to a predetermined sequence of the selection numbers wherein the interim selection is indexed to successive selections in the sequence in an increasing order in response to the seek-up command and is indexed to successive selections in the sequence in a decreasing order in response to the seek-down command. The sequence indexes the interim selection number in single steps until the interim selection number has a predetermined modulo value and then indexes the interim selection number by a jump step. Selection identifying data for each interim selection in the sequence is displayed for a predetermined display time. A control action is performed to terminate the fast seek interval, such that an interim selection having its selection identifying data being displayed at the termination of the fast seek interval is a chosen selection. The chosen selection is reproduced by the media player.